Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Day 75

We packed up the car this morning and made the four hour drive to my hometown. It always feels so good to be back here. I haven't lived here in 17 years and it still feels like home to me. If I live to be 100 it will always feel like home to me.

We've had a fun afternoon hanging out with my mom and stepdad. They're getting their house ready to leave the country for 18 months. They leave for Malaysia next week. It still feels weird to think that I won't see them for that long. They are keeping their house here, but someone else will be living in it while they're gone.

So while my mom was getting her house packed up, I made another plea for something I've been begging her for for years. When I was a kid we had a big quilt that we always wrapped up in when we were sick or just hanging out on the couch. My mom made it out of sheets or something in the 80's. It's old and not fancy and not particularly beautiful and not anything special. But I love that quilt. After my dad died and my mom got remarried, she sold the house I grew up in and most of the stuff from that house was sold or given away. There are very few traces left of that old house and all the things from my childhood.

Butt she still has that old quilt. And every time I come to visit I open up the closet and pull it out and wrap myself up in it and have a blissful moment of home. I don't know why I'm so attached to that quilt. My brother says it's because it's the quilt we used to wrap up in when we were sick and it has memories of being comforting. He might be right. Mostly it just feels like home, and sometimes I just need a little bit of home.

I have been asking her if I can have that quilt for years. My mom isn't a saver and not particularly nostalgic. She regularly gets rid of old things and I've had a fear for years that she would get rid of that quilt. But every time I check, it's still in the closet and every time I ask her if I can have it, she says no. I have jokingly told her that I want it written in her will, lol. I don't care if I inherit anything but that darn quilt!

So now they're packing up to leave the country. Tonight I offered my services as a quilt sitter. You know, someone needs to babysit that thing while they're gone, right?! She agreed. I can have the quilt.
Woohoo!

It really is just a dumb old quilt. Not valuable, not special, not beautiful. But it's a treasure to me. It's home to me. And while everything in my life is in a period of change right now, I want to hold onto something that is still the same. That old quilt looks and feels just like it did when I was a kid. And when I miss my mom and I miss my hometown and everything is changing, I'm going to wrap myself up in it. And I will be home.


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